Court Upholds Ban on Media Coverage of Rape Case

Television crew take positions in front of the Saket district court w New Delhi, India, Monday, Jan. 7, before the order that hearing be held behind closed doors.

A court in New Delhi on Wednesday upheld an order by a lower court that bans the media from reporting trial proceedings in the case of the rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman, according to lawyers familiar with the matter.

A metropolitan magistrate in a court in Saket, south Delhi, on Monday ordered the hearing in the case to be held behind closed doors, due to concerns over the suspects’ safety. As chaos ensued, the metropolitan magistrate, Namrita Aggarwal, on Monday ordered the media and other public onlookers to vacate the courtroom where the accused appeared for the first time to have charges read to them.

A group of lawyers challenged this decision, filing a petition to a higher court, the Saket District Court. ”The whole nation is interested in knowing the proceedings of the case,” they said in their petition, which was filed Monday itself, according to Indian media reports.

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But on Wednesday, the district court upheld the decision to close the trial to the public, including to the media.

Defending the court’s order for a closed-door trial in the case, Rajiv Gupta, a lawyer at the Delhi High Court, noted that, under Indian law, “in rape cases open trial is an exception, and in-camera the rule.” Section 327 of India’s code of criminal procedure says that media coverage of ongoing rape trials is only allowed with the court’s prior permission.

However, this provision has rarely been enforced. Hitesh Jain, a lawyer at the Bombay High Court, said that despite this requirement, information on rape cases is usually published “unless the court applies a ban on this.”

The logic behind banning reporting on rape cases is to protect the identity of victims and to avoid embarrassing victims or their families.

Moreover, Mr. Jain points out that the sensitive nature of such cases often leads to chaos in courtrooms, disrupting proceedings.

Five men and one juvenile are accused of raping and brutally assaulting the young woman and beating her male friend on Dec. 16. She later succumbed to injuries sustained in the attack. Her friend has been discharged from hospital and is currently with his family in a town in northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The five adults have been charged with crimes including kidnapping, gangrape and murder, and are in judicial custody in Delhi’s Tihar Jail. The juvenile is in protective custody. None of them could be reached for comment.

According to local media reports, two lawyers had offered to provide legal representation to the five accused men when they appeared in the court Monday, amid protests from colleagues The lawyers could not be reached for comment.

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